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May 15, 2021 - Pastor Message

03/28/2024

THE YEAR OF ST. JOSEPH THE WORKER (cont.)

“First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone” (1 Timothy 2:1).

“First of all”. That’s how important St. Paul thought prayer was for the success of the Church’s mission, that he told his protege, the young bishop, Timothy, to pray before doing anything else. Before preaching, teaching, healing, administrating, managing finances, fixing buildings, dealing with personnel issues, listening to complaints, and the million other responsibilities of a pastor, Paul advises Timothy to pray. Prayer is the foundation of everything we do as we seek to carry out the mission of the Church, because whose mission is it? Christ’s. How can we carry out Christ’s mission if we don’t stay close to him, and how do we stay close to him if not through prayer?

 It is important to remember that as we prayerfully consider how to respond to our time and talent drive, “Helping Our Parish Grow”. Last week I invited and even challenged all of us to prayerfully reflect on Christ’s call to work with him as laborers in the harvest, carrying out the mission of the Church to sow and nurture the seeds of God’s saving love in the hearts and minds of all our neighbors and beyond by living the gospel. While we do this in many ways, we do it in a special way through our parish ministries. Our time and talent drive encourages us to ask Christ to guide us to the ministry or ministries he is calling each of us to do.

And make no mistake; Christ is calling each of us to participate in a parish ministry. I hear from people all the time why they can’t help with parish ministries. “I’m too busy”, or “I’m too old”, or “I’m sick or disabled”, or whatever. Are you too busy, or too old, or too sick to pray? No? Good. Than you can help with a parish ministry. Our prayer chain is a parish ministry by which people pray constantly for those named in the prayer chain notebook located in the gathering space just to the left of the church entrance near the elevator. All it takes is a moment of time to stop on the way into church, take a name or two (or more) from that notebook, and offer prayers for that person or those people, even possibly offering your personal intention at that Mass for them. The priest isn’t the only one who offers Mass for particular intentions. We can all do that. Pray for those in our prayer chain notebook, and you are engaged in parish ministry.

It’s that easy. While we do need people to step up in bigger ways, such as leadership positions, most of our parish ministries require very little time and commitment. The time and commitment our volunteers give so quickly and bountifully multiply, like the loaves and the fishes, that I am always amazed at the power of God’s grace at work in and through his people, simply because they offered him some of their time and talent. Imagine the powerhouse our parish could be if we all did that, each of us offering our five loaves and two small fish to Jesus through our parish ministries. He would blow the roof off of this place with the superabundance of grace he would share with us! Give him the chance to do that by giving him some of your time and talent in one or more of our parish ministries, then prepare to be amazed at the working of God’s grace in and through you.

Fr. Marc Stockton

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